


Ignite

by purple_cube



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:55:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purple_cube/pseuds/purple_cube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss and Peeta rediscover each other through the five senses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ignite

**Author's Note:**

> Set mostly during the final chapter of Mockingjay, with references to events in earlier chapters and in Catching Fire.

 

_1\. Smell_

  
Peeta  
  
He doesn’t remember much about her from the first arena. Maybe because he didn’t think he would make it out alive, or maybe because there was too much to think about to register the tiny details about her. Because when it’s over, when they’re home and he knows that much of it was an act, he has very few memories to cling to. He remembers some of the kisses, like the first one, but not all of them. Sometimes he can’t quite picture her face, not the way she looked when she was with him. Because he hates the way that she looks at him now, all awkwardness and guilt, the same look that everyone else gives him but magnified by thousands.  
  
So when the Victory Tour rolls around, he takes it as an opportunity to commit everything about her to his memory. His first step is to do something – anything – to vanquish the awkwardness. He apologizes, not for falling for her because he can’t quite bring himself to do that, but for expecting more of her than she had been willing to give. She seems accepting enough, and slowly, the tension between them diminishes, though it never evaporates completely.  
  
And then they get sent into a new arena, and it all begins again. Trying to keep her alive, trying to stop her risking herself for him. He knows he should question more than he does, like why Finnick would resuscitate him, and why the Morphling would sacrifice herself to save him from a mutt. But he can’t, not at the time, because his mind is so full of her and everything it takes to keep her alive.  
  
He has plenty of time to think about it after, of course. When he wakes chained to a bed in the Capitol and they interrogate him for hours on end about how much he knew about the rebellion. Which, in reality, is absolutely nothing. He persuades them to let him on TV, says that if he can just communicate with Katniss, then between them they can steer the rebels towards a truce.  
  
They wait a week to see what happens, before opting for torture instead. A week that brings more rebellion, not less, and they take out every single Capitol loss on him – his body first, but later his mind, which proves to be much more effective. They’re trying to turn him against Katniss, he knows this and he fights it. But as the days pass, fighting them gets harder and harder.  
  
He’s so tired. One day, it becomes easier to keep his eyes closed to it all. After that, he forgets nearly all of the little details he had tried so hard to collect.  
  
When he wakes in District Thirteen, he thinks that he’s forgotten _something_ , but has no idea what it is.  
  
 _You’re a painter. You’re a baker. You like to sleep with the windows open. You never take sugar in your tea. And you always double knot your shoelaces._  
  
She tells him more about himself in one minute than anyone else has in the previous two months. It gets easier after that, easier to trust her, but also easier to trust himself.  
  
So, he starts again. Watching her, memorizing her, not because he loves her but because he remembers doing this, and it feels safe and right and familiar.  
  
She hugs him, just once, right before she leaves with Gale for Snow’s Mansion. A moment into the embrace, he breathes deeply, committing the faint fragrance of shampoo and pine and meadow to his memory all over again.  
  
++  
  
Katniss  
  
The night that she remembers most vividly is the final one they shared together at the Training Center. Before the Quarter Quell, before secret alliances and rebels and the Capitol pulled them apart.  
  
Sometimes she wakes in her compartment, deep underground in District Thirteen, and thinks that she smells him. She _knows_ that it can’t be true, it can’t be him, that cleaning fluid is simply one of a myriad of odors that gets trapped underground with them.  
  
She rises, preparing to open the small window that Buttercup uses to make his escape each day. But she stops herself halfway across the room, and breathes deeply before returning to bed. _I’m not ready to let him go yet._ So she lets sleep overcome her once more, dreaming of Peeta sitting at her kitchen table, painting delicately in the family plant book, bringing her descriptions to life.  
  
When his body returns, but not his mind, she forces herself to forget. Forget his smiles, his kisses, the way he felt and the way he smelled. _Because Peeta is gone._  
  
A long time passes before she convinces herself that this isn’t true. Prim is taken. She kills Coin. Snow dies.  
  
Her father teaches her to sing all over again.  
  
Haymitch takes her home.  
  
And Peeta’s body returns to Twelve. She watches him watch her, sees herself come back to life through his eyes. He smiles at her; she learns to smile back.  
  
It isn’t until Spring, when her window is open, that he hears the ghosts coming out to play with her at night. She screams herself hoarse until another ghost appears at her door.  
  
He slips into her bed, much like he had done on the train during the Victory Tour. His arms are as strong as they had been then, though even in the dim moonlight she can trace the scars that he has collected since that time. He lets her move her fingers along the patchy skin; she lets him smooth over the salty tears that fall onto her cheek.  
  
He smells of cleaning spirit, and she remembers this from Thirteen, waking full of hope only for it to evaporate when she realized that they were on opposite sides of a war that they had never agreed to be a part of. It’s only in the morning, when he sleeps soundly behind her, that her mind takes her back to the Training Center. He had spent the day at the camouflage station with the Morphlings from Six, and climbed into her bed with such a stench of spirits that she had made him take a second shower. She had been asleep by the time he had returned, and she woke in the night to a heady mix of turpentine and the pine shampoo he had decided to use.  
  
Later, as she emerges from the shell that’s been her home for so long and begins to grow towards him, she learns more about the person he has become. Baking is calming and productive and gives him a sense of being in this odd community that has risen from the ashes. On these days, he brings traces of cinnamon and nutmeg, or vanilla and pine nuts through the door with him and into her bed.  
  
He smells of cleaning fluid more on the bad days than on the good, because he thinks that his nightmares are weaker when he gets them out of his head and onto canvas. But sometimes the paintings are happy, like the one of Prim and her mother fussing over Buttercup in the kitchen. She doesn’t remember the event; he says that he doesn’t either. Only that the image came to him one morning while they sat in that same room eating breakfast.  
  
During their next phone call, her mother tells her about it, how she had been out hunting and Buttercup had limped through the window with a thorn deep in his paw. When she relays the story to Peeta, he smiles with relief and whispers a word to himself. “Real.”  
  
She hangs the painting in the hallway by the stairs, so that Prim is the first person she sees in the morning after the nights when Peeta doesn’t stay.  
  
+++++

  
_2\. Hear_

  
Peeta  
  
When he wakes, they tell him that he’s in District Thirteen and that he’s safe.  
  
He doesn’t feel safe, not knowing that she’s here. He yells at anyone who will listen, tries to warn them about her, but they don’t understand. Eventually, only Delly visits, and even though she won’t hear what he has to say about Katniss either, he can’t stay mad at her for too long – because when he looks at her he sees _home_.  
  
They talk of family and of the past. She insists that what happened wasn’t his fault, or Katniss’s, but he can never quite bring himself to believe her. So they switch to the small things, like the color of their history teacher’s hair, or the pattern the sun makes when it sets over the Square.  
  
One day, she mentions the school visits to the coal mine. The memory is vague, but it’s there. The dark, the heat, the stench. And something else…an anxiety. He had felt anxious on their last visit, but not for himself. For someone else.  
  
“Was there an accident at the mine?”  
  
“Oh, yes,” Delly replies immediately. “A lot of people died. No one we knew from town, of course…well, except…”  
  
“Except who?”  
  
Delly thinks carefully before finally answering. “Katniss’s father.”  
  
The next day, an image of the man pops into his mind. Then, fragments of a voice. Eventually, there is a song. _The Hanging Tree._  
  
Much later, after Snow and Coin have fallen and Katniss is banished to Twelve, he asks to watch every frame that’s ever been recorded of them, from their first Games to her propos for the rebels. It takes up every waking moment for an entire week, his hand cramping around the TV controller as he continuously rewinds to deduce the flickers of emotions that they had both struggled to conceal.  
  
Slowly, flashes of memory return to him. His mother, pleasant enough one moment, her hand raised in anger in the next. His father, always so patient and kind - but so ready to turn his back when he felt it was necessary. And his brothers, relying on each other but never on him, resentful of that final mouth to feed when they could have had more.  
  
He watches _that_ propo, where she sings of _the hanging tree_ to the Avox who was a member of their squad in the Capitol.  
  
And he dreams – mostly of her, but also of her father, singing that song as if Peeta’s the lover that they’re leading to the tree.  
  
Dr. Aurelius asks if watching himself and Katniss has helped.  
  
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “I feel like I know who she is now. And I know more of who I am.”  
  
The doctor smiles and tells him that he’s making good progress. Two weeks later, he finally lets him leave the Capitol.  
  
Delly visits him in Twelve shortly after he returns. He can see that it’s a painful experience for her, and doesn’t press her to stay, but he’s glad that she made the effort to keep in touch. And he has to thank her for everything she did for him.  
  
She hugs him as they step out of his house, and when he pulls away he sees Katniss watching them from her window, her expression unreadable. She disappears when their eyes meet, reappearing a moment later on her porch.  
  
She says her goodbyes to Delly too – as well as a thank you. Delly blushes and brushes off their gratitude, and invites them to stay with her in District Four; she jokes that her little brother has taken to the lifestyle like a fish to water.  
  
Katniss stands alongside him as they wave the train off. When it’s nothing but a speck in the distance, he turns to her.  
  
“Why did you thank Delly?”  
  
She meets his gaze with a sad smile, as if she’s recalling something she doesn’t like to think about. “Because she helped bring you back from the Capitol.”  
  
++  
  
Katniss  
  
As she watches him through the glass, she thinks that the Peeta that they rescued and brought back to Thirteen _looks_ like the Peeta that she hungered for in the Quarter Quell arena. He would probably still smell the same too, maybe even feel the same if she could trust him not to kill her the moment she was let into his arms.  
  
But, it’s the voice that shatters the illusion. Hard and sneering whenever they speak in Thirteen, where it was once soft and soothing.  
  
Later, when Coin sends him after her to the Capitol , it’s tired and confused instead of strong and rich.  
  
It is also his voice that tells her that the Peeta that followed her home to Twelve is really hers. Not the boy with the bread, or even the boy that shared her sleeping bag in their first Games. Because too much time has passed, too much has been done to him, to ever return that boy. But the young man that sits with her for breakfast is as close to the one that loved her on the beach in the Quarter Quell arena as he’ll ever get.  
  
His voice is soft when he asks her how she likes the bread, soothing when Buttercup curls around his leg. It is strong when he calls a meeting of the families that live in the Victors’ Village to decide how best to restore the District, and rich when he recalls memories of the Square and suggests that they rebuild it in a new location, closer to their new homes.  
  
And it’s his voice that tells her that he finally beat Snow, when he whispers _I love you_ into her hair while she feigns sleep in his arms.  
  
+++++

  
_3\. See_

  
Peeta  
  
“You’re back.”  
  
He wasn’t expecting to see her, not yet. He figured that he would plant the primroses, then go home and cobble together a meal to take to her. Haymitch had told him that Greasy Sae was tending to the both of them, but he thought a meal for the three of them would be the best way to start their new lives together.  
  
 _You’re still trying to protect me. Real or not real?  
  
Real. Because that’s what you and I do._  
  
But here she is, storming out of the front door and preparing to yell at him. He thinks it’s because he’s woken her – but then he takes her in. Her hair is matted, thick and tangled. She looks like she’s still wearing clothes from District Thirteen, which is odd since she’s been here for several weeks. And then he realizes.  
  
 _Her head’s still in the Capitol._  
  
A wild look enters her eyes as she sees the flowers. He rushes to explain, then watches her calm down and accept the gesture for what it is.  
  
He hears the shower running as he finishes planting the bushes. Later, he watches her leave the house with her bow and quiver, like he had done so many times during the year that they lived in these houses. _Maybe she’s ready to leave the Capitol, after all._  
  
When he arrives with Greasy Sae the following day, she seems better. Buttercup has found his way home too, though he knows their feelings towards each other, and doubts that it’s the cat’s presence that has instigated the change. Regardless, they seem to console each other, and he watches while she feeds nearly all of her bacon to the animal.  
  
She tells him that she spoke to her mother, and he listens while she relays the conversation with moist eyes and a hand buried in Buttercup’s fur.  
  
“Did it help to speak to her?” he asks quietly.  
  
She nods, still stroking the cat distractedly.  
  
When she does finally look at him, he is hit with a flashback. An image of a girl appears before him, her hair captured neatly in a braid, her face blank except for the faintest look of bewilderment. They were on the train heading to the Capitol for the first time, and she had caught his gaze and returned it, sharing a silent question. _How are we supposed to survive this?_  
  
She looks at him again, and the image of the girl is gone. Here is the young woman who did survive, who survived more than she ever thought possible.  
  
 _Welcome home_ , he thinks to himself.  
  
++  
  
Katniss  
  
He doesn’t arrive for breakfast one morning, so she goes to him.  
  
He takes a few minutes to answer the door. When he does appear, he’s disheveled, sweat-soaked hair clinging to his forehead and wearing only his pants.  
  
“Sorry,” he mutters. “I wasn’t expecting company.”  
  
He lets her in though, and she closes the front door behind her as she hears his bare feet pad into the living room on the right. His house is a replica of hers, though without the furnishings that her mother and Prim had made or collected over the years.  
  
“Rough night?” she calls as she follows him.  
  
“You could say that.”  
  
He’s reaching for a shirt that hangs over an armchair, and she uses the time to glance around the room. She takes in the drawn curtains, the neatly folded piles of clothing on one armchair, the blanket that lies heaped on the floor.  
  
“You sleep in here?”  
  
“Yeah,” he replies uncomfortably. “It doesn’t feel right sleeping in my old bed.”  
  
She had felt like that when she first came home, alternating between the rocking chair and the sofa downstairs instead.  
  
“I only started sleeping in my bed once you came back,” she reveals.  
  
He looks at her in surprise. “Really?”  
  
She shrugs. “I guess I began to feel safe again, knowing you were here.”  
  
He laughs unexpectedly, and she looks at him.  
  
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t think I would ever hear you say that again. I did try to kill you, after all.”  
  
“That wasn’t you, Peeta.”  
  
“I know, I know. It doesn’t feel like me when I think back to it, now.” He shrugs. “It’s just weird, that’s all.”  
  
Her eyes drift to his still visible torso as he reaches for the shirt’s buttons. His fingers freeze after a moment, and she looks up to see him watching her.  
  
He smiles sadly. “Something else I’ll never be allowed to forget.”  
  
The final battle, the fall of Snow, the fire within the City Circle. The assassin sent by Coin to kill her. Katniss wonders exactly which of these things the scars won’t let him forget.  
  
His eyes cloud over, and she knows that she has lost him to some memory that he no doubt wishes to forget. So, she unbuttons her own shirt.  
  
“Snap,” she says quietly as she drops her clothing onto the sofa.  
  
The old Katniss would feel self-conscious, stood with just her bra covering her breasts. But the new Katniss has been through too much. And maybe the new Peeta has too, because he doesn’t see her chest. His focus is on the scars that color her torso, shades of brown that no longer hurt physically, but send pain shooting through her mind whenever she thinks about the night that she received them.  
  
He must be thinking the same, or at least similar, as his gaze drifts upward to meet her eyes.  
  
“Been through a lot, you and me.”  
  
She nods, because it’s true. “We’re not the same people we were at the start.”  
  
He smiles ruefully. “No, we’re not.”  
  
He's silent for so long that she reaches for her shirt. He speaks again as she puts it on. “We should make these scars count.”  
  
She’s not entirely sure what he means. He must realize this, and elaborates.  
  
“I never used to understand what people meant when they said that somebody’s death shouldn’t be in vain. As if that person _chose_ to die, and you were somehow disrespecting that choice if you didn’t do what they had wanted. But after the Games, I think I got it.” He looks her over again, from top to toe. “I think the same about these scars. That we shouldn’t have to carry them in vain.”  
  
“What do you suggest?”  
  
His mouth tilts into a confused smile. “I don’t know. Just that they’re here but they don’t have to define us. We can define them, give them an identity instead of the other way round.”  
  
She thinks about his words later, when she’s alone. In front of the mirror, she stands naked for the first time and traces her scars. And she realizes that Peeta’s right. They don’t have to define her. Everything around her makes her think of Prim, not just the scars, and she has thirteen years of memories to draw upon to drown out that final one.  
  
+++++

  
_4\. Touch_

  
Peeta  
  
Their final day in the Training Center is long and full and he loves every second of it. He sits with her hair tangled in his lap, and he tells her that he could live in this moment forever.  
  
During the night, sleep is elusive for them both, too many thoughts and memories and fears racing through their minds. Her fingers stroke his forearm soothingly as he holds her waist. He nudges closer, her still damp hair pillowing the side of his face.  
  
They stay like that for hours, and he isn’t even aware of the shift in her. But something must change, some switch must have been flipped, because her fingers clamp gently around his wrist. When he doesn’t object, she guides him down her body, until his hand rests between her legs.  
  
“Katniss?” he whispers.  
  
“I want to.” Her voice is quiet, but is far from unsure. “Do you?”  
  
He can’t help himself – his only answer is a gentle application of pressure through her underwear.  
  
She gasps.  
  
“Are you sure?”  
  
He thinks that she nods, but can’t be certain in the dark. A whispered _yes_ follows, and it’s all that he needs.  
  
He pulls her flush against him and closes what little gap there had been between them. She turns fractionally towards him, so that most of her weight lies on him and not on her side. She also angles her face towards him, and he catches the corner of her mouth in a desperate kiss.  
  
Her furthest arm is now free following her movement, and her fingers tangle with his as she guides him once more.  
  
The rhythm is steady, controlled, and he’s reveling in the sounds that are escaping from her when her free hand ghosts over his crotch. His eyes snap open to find her watching him carefully from the corner of her eye.  
  
He knows that she can see him better than he can see her, thanks to being closer to the window and the moonlight, so he merely nods his consent. She doesn’t hesitate, her fingers slipping under the waistband of his shorts. They get caught along the way, and he pulls his hand away to help her. They pause for a moment, fingers entwined, suddenly conscious of what they’re doing.  
  
But then she slides further to wrap her slender hand around his dick, and he lets his mind close to every thought except that one. Dimly, he becomes aware of her hips thrusting gently, requesting more from him. So he concentrates on his original goal, leaving her hand behind to slide his arm across hers and dips his fingers beneath her panties.  
  
She moans lightly when he touches her skin, and a puff of delighted laughter escapes from his lips.  
  
“That’s a beautiful sound,” he admits.  
  
“Keep going, and I might make it again,” she replies breathlessly.  
  
So he does, rubbing circles in a haphazard pattern until she gasps again. He narrows his focus, concentrating on the hitches in her breathing to tell him he’s on the right path. When he probes deeper, she gives him that beautiful moan again.  
  
Her hand squeezes around his dick, reminding him of its presence.  
  
“Move up and down,” he instructs her, more roughly than he intended. But she does it, gently at first but with a tighter grip and a more dogged rhythm when he groans his appreciation.  
  
They move in tandem for a few minutes, listening to each other’s sounds to determine their actions.  
  
Her ass cheek pushes erratically into his groin, and it occurs to him that she wants more. “Tell me what you want, Katniss.”  
  
She uses her free hand to position his first two fingers on either side of the mound of skin between her lower lips. “Pinch,” she orders.  
  
So he does, and gasps in wonder as her body nearly comes off the bed. He does it again and again, until her moans turn into one long, delightful sound.  
  
“Come for me,” he pleads. He stops pinching and wriggles his fingers up and down as fast as he can around the sensitive bundle of nerves. She bucks her hips and climaxes with a sharp cry, her fingernails digging painfully into his upper thigh. He keeps rubbing her clit as she descends from her high, waiting for the gasping to end and her breathing to slow before finally stopping.  
  
When he moves his hand to her stomach, she seems to realize the location of her own. Taking him into her grip once more, she pumps quickly and with greater confidence than before.  
  
He thrusts into her with the same urgency. Her name is on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t want to distract her, doesn’t want her to stop until she tears him apart. So he doesn’t say it, even when his mind calls for her over and over again.  
  
He comes with a groan, his hand tight around hers. She strokes him gently through it, like he did with her, until his gulps of breaths become shallow.  
  
He starts to wipe her hand on his shirt, but she simply wraps her fingers over his and pulls them to her stomach, her back lying flush against his chest again. He kisses the tiny patch of her neck that is exposed between her clothes and hair.  
  
“I wish this night could last forever,” he whispers into her ear.  
  
“Me too.”  
  
++  
  
Katniss  
  
It’s Peeta’s idea for the three of them to have dinner together every night once he returns to Twelve. _That way I can make sure that the two of you are at least getting one decent meal a day._ Haymitch had scoffed and said it would be just like old times, watching Peeta swoon over her, only to be rejected. Peeta had swiped at his liquor bottle and sent it crashing to the ground in retaliation, before telling him to be there at seven sharp the following evening. It still surprises Katniss that he was, and still has been, on time every day since.  
  
They never stay after dinner, Peeta always walking Haymitch home before returning to his own. Some nights, she doesn’t need him at all. But the other nights, when her screams rouse him from his own nightmares, she hears him sprinting the short distance between their houses and to her room.  
  
The first kiss of their new lives is an accident. He’s reaching over her for a knife as she washes dishes at the sink. She leans across him for a plate and he kisses her as if it’s a reflex. He pulls back a second later, as stunned as she is.  
  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”  
  
“It’s okay,” she interrupts hurriedly.  
  
He’s nervous around her after that, as they both try to carry on as normal. Eventually, she sighs and pulls him into her arms.  
  
“You love me again,” she says as a matter of fact.  
  
He merely nods. So she kisses him, not because he loves her, but because he’s Peeta. He freezes for a moment, but then his mouth opens to her and she deepens the kiss.  
  
On the night that the hunger overwhelms her, they kiss with increasing desperation until he suggests that he should return to his own house.  
  
“No.”  
  
“I wasn’t asking,” he mutters, almost angrily. She wonders how the atmosphere has managed to switch so quickly.  
  
“Peeta, wait –“ She stops as she realizes that he has no intention of listening to her, his hand already on the door handle.  
  
She sleeps in fits and starts. The mutts – the monkeys, to be specific – come for her, and she fights them with screams until she falls out of bed with Peeta racing to her feet.  
  
His anger is gone, and he clambers into bed with her.  
  
She traces circles absently across his wrist as it rests on his stomach. Her attention is seized though when his fingers splay upward and catch the side of her breast. She holds her breath, and a moment later, he edges closer.  
  
He’s hard against the small of her back.  
  
“Now you see why I shouldn’t be here?” His tone is resigned, as if he hasn’t even entertained the thought that she might feel the same.  
  
So she takes his hand in hers and guides them to where the hunger cries out the most.  
  
She withdraws her hand and reaches behind. When her fingers dip under his waistband, he gasps.  
  
“We’ve done this before,” he whispers uncertainly. “Real or not real?”  
  
Her breath catches in her throat when his finger probes that little bit deeper. “Real.”  
  
“On the train?”  
  
“No.” She gasps when he slides the tip of his middle finger inside her. “At the Training Center.”  
  
“The night before the second arena,” he says thoughtfully. She nods even though he probably can’t see it.  
  
He moves with increasing confidence now, as if he remembers what she taught him. She moves confidently herself, recalling the effect that she had on him that night and the guttural groan that escaped from his throat when she took him over the edge. She angles her head so that she can see the silhouette of his face in the moonlight, their mouths lying wide open and inches apart.  
  
They reach their peaks almost simultaneously, crying out against each other’s lips.  
  
When he asks her if she loves him, she tells him what she finally knows to be true.  
  
+++++

  
_5\. Taste_

  
Peeta  
  
They stay in bed until late morning and miss Greasy Sae, but the eggs are still lukewarm when they finally make it to the kitchen.  
  
Katniss starts to divide them onto two plates, but warm arms encircle her from behind to interrupt her plans.  
  
“Peeta,” she chides gently. “Breakfast first.”  
  
“As much as I like eggs and bread, there’s something else I’d rather taste right now,” he murmurs against her ear, his fingers already working deftly to unbutton her pants.  
  
The corner of her mouth that is exposed to him rises in a half-smile, but she keeps her voice neutral when she answers. “We’ve both got a lot to do today, Peeta. I need to go to the woods and get something for Sae’s lunch, and you need to bake.”  
  
Between the three of them, they’ve been providing meals for the settlers who have returned to District Twelve, with Greasy Sae setting up a new version of the Hob in her home at the end of the Victors’ Village. The newcomers crammed into the Village initially, with Peeta opening up his home when the rest of the houses were full. Now, there are foundations of buildings springing up everywhere in the fields around them, and those who have roofs above their heads do what they can for those that don’t. So, she’s taken to hunting and fishing every day, usually for the morning but sometimes for as many daylight hours as she gets. And he bakes, every morning, dropping one loaf at each house on his way to Sae’s, where he leaves the remainder.  
  
Peeta isn’t listening to her though, or at least pretending not to. His fingers tease her, dipping in and out of her panties, too light and too quick to give her any kind of release. But this is only about signaling his intention.  
  
“Can’t you wait until tonight?” she asks gently.  
  
Now, his fingers dip deeper, flicking her skin exactly where she needs it. Her breath hitches in her throat, and he shifts fractionally closer.  
  
He doesn’t bother hiding his amusement when he answers. “I think the better question is, can _you_?”  
  
Katniss flexes her jaw, knowing that he’ll both see and feel it. She gathers what is left of yesterday’s bread and places it on the board, ready for slicing.  
  
She’s reaching for the knife when Peeta slides a finger inside her. She moves her hand to the edge of the counter instead, taking a firm grip to steady herself.  
  
“I’m not stupid enough to let you have a weapon in your hand when we do this, Katniss,” he growls in her ear. “Not yet, at any rate.”  
  
He pulls out, settling two fingers against her clit and rubbing gently.  
  
“Not yet?” she breathes.  
  
“Maybe later,” he says, though with some uncertainty. “When we know more about what the other likes and doesn’t like, and where our boundaries are. But for now…” He breaks off as he pushes those fingers into her once more, receiving a rewarding gasp. “For now, forget about breakfast and concentrate on me.”  
  
So she pushes the bread board away from her, laying her palms flat on the surface.  
  
“Spread your legs a little,” he orders. It’s only a slight move, but it increases the height difference between them. Now his lips are at her temple, and he kisses her there in reward.  
  
He moves with greater confidence than he had done the previous night, using the catches in her breath to dictate exactly where and when to apply pressure. Her head falls back onto his shoulder as he quickens his rhythm and thrusts lightly against her in time to his fingers. She must be able to feel him hard against her and absent-mindedly tries to reach behind for him. But he stops her, using his free hand to place it on the countertop and weaving their fingers together.  
  
“Later,” he murmurs.  
  
He dips two fingers inside again, curling until she gasps and tries to bury her face into his neck.  
  
When he buries his fingers between her folds and pinches, hard, he tilts his head to watch her reaction.  
  
She cries out sharply, her eyes bulging as she strains her neck to meet his.  
  
She’s so close.  
  
But he doesn’t want to lead her to the brink just yet, and she groans, this time in frustration. Leaning forward to rest her weight on her palms, she finally caves.  
  
“Please, Peeta.”  
  
He doesn’t hesitate, holding her sensitive mound between his fingers as he pumps them up and down until she arches back into him, holding her breath. Finally, he takes her to her peak, their fingers entwined as her head drops back and she lets out a cry of relief.  
  
They stay where they are for several minutes, both trying to slow their breathing. Eventually, he takes his fingers up, and she hurriedly fastens her pants.  
  
When she turns to face him, he’s licking his fingers dry. She seems embarrassed, so he smiles and tries to put her at ease.  
  
Before he can speak, she places her hands on his arms and switches their positions so that he is the one leaning against the counter.  
  
Peeta frowns. “Katniss?”  
  
“Your turn.” She unfastens his pants quickly, before he has a chance to stop her.  
  
“We should take this upstairs,” he suggests, his voice twitching as she strokes him through his undershorts.  
  
“No, Peeta,” she tells him firmly. “We’re staying right here.”  
  
And then she kisses him, hard and hot. It occurs to him that it’s the first one they’ve shared this morning.  
  
“Someone could see,” he manages to get out when she finally pulls back. “It wasn’t so obvious with you.”  
  
“Then let them.”  
  
She lowers the waistline of his shorts, freeing his erection. In the bright daylight, the sight seems to fascinate her. When she looks up, Peeta is watching her carefully.  
  
“I seem to recall you weren’t a fan of nudity,” he comments quietly.  
  
“You’re not nude,” she states.  
  
His eyes bulge as she drops to her knees, holding his gaze.  
  
“Katniss, this is definitely _not_ discrete.”  
  
Her gaze drifts to his dick, and she takes a long lick from base to tip. Pulling back to peer up at him, she is rewarded with hooded eyes and a whispered swear word. “ _Fuck._ ”  
  
“Would you like me to stop?” she asks with feigned innocence.  
  
He’s torn, glancing between her and the window. After a moment, he shakes his head. “Don’t stop.”  
  
So she takes him in her mouth, experimenting for the first few minutes, from shallow dips to pulling him in and up to the roof of her mouth. He hisses when her teeth graze the shaft, groans when she cups his testes, whispers her name when she sucks hard at the tip. The experimenting seems to conclude when she settles on a rhythm of pumping her hand near the base of the shaft in time to the motion of her lips at the head.  
  
He almost wants to ask how she could be so good at this, changes his mind when he thinks that he might be afraid of the answer, then comes to the realization that the quiet moans that have been permeating the room for the past few minutes have been coming from him. And that Katniss has been taking her cue from them.  
  
She falters when he makes a conscious effort to be silent, her eyes clear and wide when they glance up at him, mouth still full. And this, he thinks, is _the_ moment out of so many over the past day or so that he wants to commit to the deepest recesses of his mind, to lock away so that no one can ever take it away from him.  
  
He chokes out a breath when she starts again, faster than before, her grip tightened by a fraction. That fraction is all it takes though, and a moment later he’s pleading with her.  
  
“Katniss, please.” He tugs at her hair, gently at first, but more urgently when she ignores him.  
  
She lets him go with a wet pop, sitting back on her heels. He almost laughs at the level of annoyance on her face.  
  
“You need to stop, Katniss. Before things get messy.”  
  
Her irritated expression morphs into determination when she gets to her feet. She holds his gaze as she wraps her hand around his dick once more, just the right side of rough as she pumps away at the fastest pace yet.  
  
She bites the corner of her mouth in concentration, but her eyes never leave his. Peeta’s lips part to form a perfect O as she brings him to his own climax, stuttering and squirting onto her hand as well as the hem of his shirt.  
  
Her lips curl into a half-smile as she brings her hand to her mouth, watching him watch her as she licks up the moisture.  
  
“Next time,” she says, her voice full of warning, “I won’t stop.”  
  
A moment later she’s gone, looking for something on the other side of the kitchen. Suddenly feeling exposed, Peeta tucks himself in and fastens his pants. He’s still trying to steady his breathing when she comes back to him, her hunting bag in her hand. She hastily tips her half of the eggs and half the bread into a small sheet of muslin, wraps it up and drops it into the bag.  
  
“Katniss?”  
  
“I’ll take it with me. I wanted to get out early so I can get something for Sae to put into the lunchtime stew.”  
  
She gives him a quick kiss before leaving, and if it wasn’t for the soft smile that she delivers along with it, he would wonder if they had made a mistake.  
  
++  
  
Katniss  
  
She takes a moment to peer through the window before entering. Peeta’s still stood by the counter with his back to her. She can see several trays filled with baked loaves though, so at least he’s been productive this morning.  
  
She opens the door, dropping her game bag to the floor, ready to pick up and take to Greasy Sae after a quick change of clothes. She’s taken to cleaning up her kills at the older woman’s house since Peeta started baking at hers, their kitchen not quite big enough for both activities.  
  
The sound of her boots on the cold floor echoes through the room. “You’re angry that I left,” she says when she sees him tense, more of a statement than a question. But then he turns around, and she sees that she is wrong. It isn’t anger that’s making him tense – it’s restraint.  
  
He crosses the length of the kitchen quickly, almost breaking into a sprint, and she has a split second to drop her bow and quiver before his momentum sends both of their bodies crashing into the wall.  
  
His kisses are desperate, nearly brutal, and she can’t remember it ever being like this. This is a hunger that he has never exposed to her before – and she thinks that she likes it.  
  
“That was cruel,” he whispers breathlessly against her cheek when they finally come up for air. “I kept seeing you, seeing us, like a flashback that I never wanted to end. Haymitch dropped by, wanting to talk about the next shipment and whether we wanted to request anything from Effie. I could barely string a sentence together.”  
  
She laughs, because she really can’t imagine charming, smooth-talking Peeta struggling for words. But then his fingers move to separate her thighs, and any mirth that she feels is quickly swamped by anticipation of what’s to come.  
  
“I’m serious,” he continues in a low voice. “All I could see, all I could think of, all I wanted, was _you_. I ruined the first batch of bread by forgetting to add yeast. I had to give them to Haymitch to feed to the geese.”  
  
His gaze flickers down. Her eyes follow, and she watches his hand move almost reverently against her crotch, fingers spread wide and not applying nearly enough pressure.  
  
“Peeta, please,” she says with a quiet desperation.  
  
His eyes shine. A hint of a smile plays on his lips, and his handsomeness takes her by surprise, as if she is only just seeing him and he hasn’t been a near-permanent fixture in her life for the past two years.  
  
“I’m not going to be discrete, Katniss.”  
  
It’s a warning…a promise of what’s to come.  
  
She nods, quick and urgent, trying to get him to react in the same manner. But Peeta – determined, obstinate Peeta – shakes his head.  
  
His hands move to her hips, and together they travel until she is seated on the edge of the tabletop and he is trapped between her legs.  
  
“Someone might see,” she murmurs as his tongue laps at her neck.  
  
“With any luck,” is the muffled reply.  
  
She wonders dimly where the polite, restrained boy that fell in love with her is now.  
  
He unbuttons her pants, his eyes never leaving hers. There is a question in them though, and she finds herself nodding her reply. She lifts her hips, allowing him to slide both her pants and her underwear down in one swift movement.  
  
He must see panic flicker across her face, because he suddenly looks concerned.  
  
“Katniss?”  
  
“I just feel so exposed,” she mumbles.  
  
“Like I did earlier,” he reminds her. “But I trusted you. Will you trust me?”  
  
His eyes are clear, clearer than they have been for a long time. He suddenly looks younger, full of hope and anticipation, like he had been during their time in the cave.  
  
“Yes.” Her voice is bold, knowing that there can be no confusion between them over this.  
  
His hand sweeps reverently across the tops of her thighs, but he’s still watching her.  
  
“May I?”  
  
She nods, expecting to feel the pressure of his fingertips any moment now. But he surprises her again, dropping slowly to his knees, his eyes only leaving hers when she nods her consent again.  
  
She’s suddenly aware of how peculiar she must look, and leans back onto her elbows to dispel the image from her mind. Then, she feels his tongue on her, separating her lower lips, and any feeling other than hunger is chased away.  
  
He explores her in a way he never has before, his mouth kissing and lapping and sucking every millimeter of flesh between her legs. Eventually, he settles on a rhythm when he notices how tightly she is clinging to the edge of the table. He sucks and licks her in rapid turns, his hands clamped tightly over hers.  
  
She arches off the surface as she comes, her throat hoarse even though she doesn’t recall any of the sounds she made. When she opens her eyes, he’s already on his feet, helping to pull her clothing back over her knees.  
  
He takes her head in his hands after she jumps to her feet to cover herself up, forcing her to look at him. “Are you okay?”  
  
“I’m happy,” she says honestly.  
  
He gives her a broad smile. “Me too.”  
  
He lets her go to Greasy Sae’s with a light kiss, and she stays there for longer than she needs to, trying to process what’s happening between the two of them, to define the people that they’re becoming. She returns home with no more answers than when she had left.  
  
But then Peeta descends the stairs to meet her, his eyes full of promise – and something else she can’t quite place. He moves as if to kiss her in greeting, stopping just short at the final moment when a flicker of uncertainty crosses his face.  
  
“I’m sorry, I –“  
  
She cuts him short, reaching to place a soft kiss on his cheek instead. It occurs to her that maybe he hasn’t quite defined what they are either.  
  
“I suddenly thought back to the first Games,” he reveals quietly. “When I found out that you didn’t feel the same, and we were acting for the cameras and – “  
  
The pain that flashes across his expression is too much to bear, and she kisses his lips now, hot and hard, as if she can erase the anguish that she caused so long ago.  
  
“I’m not acting, Peeta.”  
  
His relief is tangible. “Me neither,” he whispers.  
  
They kiss in the hallway, taking long and languid raids on each other’s mouths, until they hear the door opening to signal that their evening meal has arrived. A louder, less gracious entrance is heard as they walk into kitchen, indicating the arrival of Haymitch.  
  
They take their place at the table, and Katniss tries desperately to dispel the image of Peeta between her legs in almost the same location as where he is sat now.  
  
She can feel the heat of his gaze on her for the duration of the meal.  
  
Greasy Sae finishes up at the stove and starts to make her way to the door. As she passes Katniss, she stops, brushing her bony hand against the younger woman’s face.  
  
“Nice to see some color in your cheeks again, dear.”  
  
She looks up in time to catch Peeta’s wolfish grin. Her eyes flick across to Haymitch to make sure he hasn’t caught it.  
  
Katniss lets out a short cough, ignoring the quiet chuckle that rises from the other end of the table. “How are the geese doing, Haymitch?”  
  
He shrugs. “Still alive.”  
  
They don’t talk for the rest of the meal, and she thinks that her blush may have disappeared by the time her plate is clean.  
  
Haymitch has barely taken his last bite when he rises from his chair, still chewing noisily as he speaks. “I’ll be back in a minute.”  
  
She exchanges a look with Peeta, who is evidently as confused as she is.  
  
She busies herself with clearing their plates, half-expecting Haymitch to forget about them until the morning. But he’s back within a few minutes, and she makes her way to the center of the room.  
  
He drops a small box onto the table. “Effie wanted me to give you these back on the Victory Tour, but I was pretty sure you didn’t need them.” He pauses for a moment, looking back and forth between them. “I’m pretty sure you do need them now.”  
  
Peeta seems to identify the contents of the box before she does, and swipes it from the table, holding it in his lap and away from her view.  
  
“Thanks, Haymitch,” he says in a careful voice, despite his eyes never leaving hers.  
  
The older man nods, then looks at her for another long moment. He must be satisfied with whatever he sees, because he leaves soon after without another word.  
  
She turns to Peeta for an explanation.  
  
“Condoms,” he says quietly as he places the box back on the table.  
  
 _Oh._  
  
“We don’t…we don’t have to do anything with them, Katniss, not if you don’t want to.”  
  
“Why wouldn’t I?” she blurts out without thinking. _Why wouldn’t I_ , she repeats to herself, struggling to find an answer.  
  
He’s suddenly shy, not wanting to look at her and instead focusing on a discolored fleck of wood on the table surface.  
  
“Tell me what you want, Katniss,” he murmurs, eyes still diverted.  
  
So she tells him, because she’s ready to say it out loud, ready to make it real.  
  
“I want you.”  
  
+++++

 


End file.
